Another RSA Conference is here and we are looking forward to a week full of networking and learning. If you will be at the conference and are interested in meeting with us, just drop us a line or stop and say hello if you see a one of our members in the hallway.

Today, is an especially exciting day for us as we get to share with you all that Howard Schmidt is joining SAFECode as our executive director.

Howard has been a respected member of our community for so long that he needs no introduction for most of you. He has more than 40 years of information security experience, spanning defense, law enforcement, and corporate security. Most recently, Schmidt served as Special Assistant to the President and the Cybersecurity Coordinator for the U.S. government from 2009 to 2012. While at the White House, he was responsible for coordinating interagency cybersecurity policy development and implementation, and for coordinating engagement with federal, state, local, international and private sector cybersecurity partners. He also has deep experience working with other industry associations and forums and has held leadership positions in groups such as Information Security Forum (ISF) and Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).

Under Howard’s leadership, we will to continue to execute our technical mission of identifying and promoting the most effective methods for increasing trust in commercial technology products and services. But we are hoping to expand the global reach of our work and increase our engagement with the business community and governments worldwide. Our goal is to ensure that our technical work has the most positive impact possible.

We’ll post more details on Howard’s role and what it means for SAFECode in the coming weeks. But for now, we welcome him to SAFECode and look forward to the positive work we will do together.